College of Management

With baby boomers starting to retire in droves, state and local governments across the country have been finding that health care and other retirement benefits promised to their teachers, police, state workers, and other employees are under-funded. In addition, state and local governments are under pressure to be more competitive with the private sector to hire and retain talent. School of Public and International Affairs professors Richard Kearney, Dennis Daley, and Jerrell Coggburn are working with College of Management professor Robert Clark to assess the status of state and local government retiree health care benefits, alternative plans and approaches, and costs and estimated future liabilities. With funding from the Center for State and Local Government Excellence in Washington, D.C., the faculty team is surveying state and local governments across the United States to identify best practices for providing retiree health care benefits, assessing health care for government retirees, and calculating government financial contributions to retiree health care.